


Rise and Fall

by little_abyss



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening
Genre: City Elf Culture and Customs, Class Differences, Dalish Elves, Gen, Race
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-11
Updated: 2017-11-11
Packaged: 2019-02-01 00:05:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12692934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/little_abyss/pseuds/little_abyss
Summary: Something which Velanna says stays with Nathaniel, and they discuss it.





	Rise and Fall

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kagura](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kagura/gifts).



He’s waiting.  Velanna looks away, trying to ignore Nathaniel as he falls into step with her.  The Warden-Commander ranges forward, Justice alongside them.  As usual, the weather is bleak, stormclouds banked heavily to the north, crowding themselves upon the horizon.  Lightning flashes within their depths, and their boots squelch in the mud as soon as they leave the drawbridge behind.

 

Nathaniel wants to tell her something; she wishes he’d just  _ say it _ .  But she says nothing, in spite of the mounting annoyance she feels at his presence.  Finally, he clears his throat.  “I’ve been thinking about what you said, my lady.”

“Have you?” she rounds on him, irritation flickering through her nerves, “Then you should remember that I’m not your  _ lady _ .”

He inclines his head, ducking it, an expression of something very like petulance warping his features.  “My apologies,” Nathaniel tells her, still in the same tone, “But it was not that.”

“Clearly,” Velanna tells him, her voice acerbic, and waits for him to continue.  But he remains silent, perhaps chagrinned, until she can stand it no longer.  “Well?” she asks, “Out with it.  What have you been thinking?”

 

“About the irony of the title  _ nobility _ ,” he mutters, then shakes his head.  “It doesn’t matter.”

Velanna shrugs.  He’s right.  It doesn’t. But the idea that something she’d said had resonated with him, that he’d continued to think about it after their conversation had died, it feels… peculiar.  She’s never met a shemlen quite like him before.  Perhaps the kind of shemlen the Wardens attract is different to those which she’d encountered before.  Velanna snorts, dismissing the thought out of hand.  Shemlen are not different; there may be some exceptions to the rule, but broadly they are both dense and vicious.  Idly, she tosses her head, flicking her hair off her face, and sees him watching her from the corner of her eye.  She turns, frowning at him, and he sighs.

 

“You’re right,” he says softly, and adjusts the bow on his shoulder.  “The way they behave… the way  _ we _ behave… though I am not a lord’s son anymore.  They saw to that.”  He jerks his head forward, in Cousland’s direction, and Velanna arches an eyebrow.

“From what I’ve observed, the shemlen  _ nobility _ do not behave much differently from the general population,” she tells him, “And I believe, from what you have told me, that you were never favoured by your father anyway.”

Nathaniel stiffens, and he slows his steps for a moment.  Velanna looks away again, scanning the horizon, the Taint in her blood singing.  Is it louder than before?  Not perceptibly.  She sighs, glancing at Nathaniel, whose expression is still stony.  He throws a glance in her direction, then mumbles angrily, “And what would you know of  _ the general population _ ?”

“Quite as much as you,” she bristles, “I’ve encountered humans…”

“Have you ever been to a city? Ever lived there?” he asks, then shakes his head.  She snorts derisively and sighs.

 

“ _ I  _ don’t need to,” she tells him, “ _ I _ know the stories of the elvhen who escape these  _ alienages _ .   _ I _ know the poverty, the abject situation of their lives as they describe them. The diseases which are rife, the work they must do for pitiable wages, the way that they cling desperately to the shadow of the elvhen ways which afford them some degree of weak pride in who they are.  And then, to have their homes ransacked by Templars on the hunt for apostate mages, to have drunken shemlen piss against the vhenadhal, to have their Hahren disrespected by children in the street.   _ I _ know what it’s like in an alienage, Warden Howe.   _ I _ know that the human  _ nobility _ allow this to continue in order to protect their power.   _ I _ know all this, though I have not lived in a city.  My question to you is  _ how do you not? _ Why do you protect your ignorance?”

 

Velanna stops, out of breath, angry with herself for becoming so angry.  He won’t change.  And even if he did, how could he possibly affect any change himself?  The problem is so much larger than either of them.  Thunder rumbles distantly, and Velanna sighs.  She is about to stride forward to join the Warden-Commander, when Nathaniel coughs quietly.  Velanna turns, and he glances at her, before looking away.  “I don’t know,” he mumbles, “But I know it’s not right.”

Silently, Velanna nods, then takes a deep breath, trying to steady herself.  “It’s not enough, Warden Howe,” she tells him quietly, “People don’t change.”

Grimly, he nods and looks away.  And then Cousland shouts at them to hurry, Nathaniel is unslinging his bow and the mana rises up inside Velanna, ready to be conjured forth.   _ People don’t change _ , she thinks to herself as the Hurlock laughs bitterly, as the sound of the flight of Nathaniel’s arrow through the air toward it becomes the centre of the world,  _ People don’t change... do they? _

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for the prompt, Kagura! I hope you enjoyed the treat!


End file.
